Exchange Interview Questions

I am in the process of interviewing some candidates for my IT Department. I'm looking for a person with strong Exchange experience.

My question:
Does anybody know of any Exchange (mainly 2000 or 2003, hopefully they share the same similarities) questions that I may ask this potential candidate. I will also need the answers to these questions of course. I myself don't know a thing about Exchange so I would like the Exchange Experts here to guide me in choosing the right candidate to match my needs.

"The solutions and answers provided on Experts Exchange have been extremely helpful to me over the last few years. I wear a lot of hats - Developer, Database Administrator, Help Desk, etc., so I know a lot of things but not a lot about one thing. Experts Exchange gives me answers from people who do know a lot about one thing, in a easy to use platform." -Todd S.

Maybe you should hire someone from here to do the technical interview. If you don't know anything about Exchange how can you verify that the interview objects answers correctly to the questions posted here since there are alot of answers to each question. It's not like, "what is 1+1" = 2 answers that you can expect. If you're serious about this recruitment you should let someone else with Exchange skills handle the interview.

3.1.1 You have just setup a new forest consisting of an empty root and 2 child domains. Both child domains will host user accounts. You now need to install Exchange 2003, please describe the rights needed and the steps to be performed to install Exchange.

A: Schema/Enterprise admin to run forest prep in the root domain
Domain Admin to run domain prep in the 2 child domains (since the root is empty and will not host mailboxes then there is not need to run domain prep in the root)

3.1.2 You currently have 1 forest with two tree’s X.Com and Y.Net. Management in each tree wants to be able to manage their Exchange servers. How many Exchange Organizations should you install?

A: 1 – only 1 Exchange organization can be installed in an Active Directory forest.

3.1.3 You have been task with installing a new Exchange 2003 mailbox server in your current Exchange Org. that will host 1,000 mailboxes. Describe the steps that should be taken to optimize the Exchange server. You have unlimited resources at hand.

A: Answer will vary
-- If more the 1 GB of ram edit the boot.ini with the /3GB switch and the /Userva=3030
-- Mirror drives that hold transaction Logs
-- Raid 5 drive that hold DB
-- No more than 4GB of ram ( Exchange will not use more than that)
-- Possible Clustering A/A A/P

3.1.4 Since Exchange 200X allows the use of multiple databases, what is the maximum number of Storage Groups and Databases allowed per server?

A: Storage Groups – 4 / Databases 5 per SG total of 40 with the exception of the RSG

3.1.5 Exchange 2003 supports 3 transport connectors what are they and what is the default used between servers?

A: Smtp, Routing Group Connectors, and X. 400

3.1.6 What Windows components are required to install Exchange 2003?

A: NNTP, SMTP,ASP.NET, AND IIS

3.2 Exchange Recovery

3.2.1 Your current Exchange environment does not have a current backup plan. You need to design a backup strategy that will allow users data to be recovered as quickly as possible even though there is limited space to store the backups.

A: Full and differentials

3.2.2 A new administrator deletes a current users mailbox. The Exchange 2003 installation was done by accepting all the defaults and no changes have been made since the installation. What is the fastest way to recover the mailbox?

A: ESM – go to the Storage Group – mailbox store – Reconnect or
Use the mailbox Recovery Center

3.2.3 A new administrator deletes a current users mailbox. The Exchange 2003 installation was done by accepting all the defaults and no changes have been made since the installation. What is the fastest way to recover the mailbox but when you attempt to reconnect the mailbox you notice it has been purged. How would you recover the mailbox?

A: Create a Recovery Storage Group and restore the database where the users previously resided to the RSG. Create a new Exchange store and rename if needed the database that was restored to the RSG to match the name of the newly create database. Move the database from the RSG to the location of the new Exchange store. Mount the restored database which will make all user disconnected mailboxes. Reconnect the user account to the mailbox and move the mailbox to the correct location.

3.2.4 What permissions are needed to run exmerge?

A: Receive As and Send As

3.3 You have recently setup a front-end Exchange server to offload protocols. Users are complaining about having to type the url/Exchange. Describe how you can resolve this issue.

A: IIS change the home folder to redirect and input /Exchange (or url/exchange) and check the box a directory below this one.

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Pentrix2 it seems that you got offended that it wasn't my goal. I still don't understand why you got offended though since you obviously want the best Exchange candidate and it may be difficult for you to find him/her since as you say yourself lack Exchange skills. I don't know Linux so I wouldn't interview Linux candidates, but that's me. I got recruited last month for a new job and the interviews were great and I accepted the job. After beeing there for 3 weeks I know it's totally wrong since the interviewer answered wrong on all my questions regarding the technical aspects, big disappointment for me. So, I'm talking from experince and if you think I'm unprofessional, so be it. I just tried to help, but sometimes not beeing native English speaking or writing the point I tried to make may seem harsh.